Archive

Quotes

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

—Arthur Miller, 2001

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

—Tacitus, c. 117

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796